Samantha Byrne
Samantha Byrne was a Gear soldier that fought in Delta-One during the Stranded Insurgency and the Lambent Invasion. When the Coalition of Ordered Governments collapsed and was forced to abandon Vectes, Sam chose to go on the CNV Sovereign as part of the rapid response force that could assist several different settlements the COG remnants had set up. Sam was of the daughter of a Kashkuri liaison to the COG army and a Tyran Gear. Biography 'Early Life' Sam was the daughter of Sgt.Samuel Byrne, a Tyran Gear, and Sheraya Byrne, who was of Kashkuri origins and liaison for the Coalition of Ordered Governments at the Anvil Gate garrison in Anvegad, Kashkur. Her father was killed during the Siege of Anvil Gate, despite being given a chance to flee with his pregnant wife. This left Sheraya to raise Sam alone, and as she grew up, she would tell Sam stories about how Anvegad burned during the siege. During the last years of the Pendulum Wars, life in Anvegad was difficult, and Sam and the other townspeople faced food shortages. 'Vectes and the Stranded Insurgency' 'Off Duty at the Bar' Fifteen years after Emergence Day, Sam was a Gear like her father, fighting on the frontlines against the Locust Horde. After the COG moved to the island of Vectes, Sam was assigned to an Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit commanded by Major Aleksander Reid due to her expertise in explosives. While off duty, she drank with CPO Frank Muller at the Main Mess Bar at Vectes Naval Base, where he taught her how to play navy chess. She tried to get Cpl.Damon Baird to join in, but he refused. Sam then returned to playing the chess game, which used shot glasses with either moonshine or rum in them as pieces, and drinking whenever a piece was taken. 'Battle of Vectes' Shortly after this, Sam went on patrol on a Rat bike. She discovered tracks and an explosive device north of the hydro plant, and could tell it was remote detonated, meaning that Stranded Insurgents were nearby, and worked out the position they had taken in the tree line. She called this in to Lt.Anya Stroud and Sgt.Bernadette Mataki, and they arranged to ambush the Stranded with the help of Echo Squad. However, Anya and Bernie's Packhorse was hit by another roadside bomb, and they were unable to help Sam and Echo. Sam commed them and told them they were in position, and were preparing to launch the attack. Unfortunately, the Stranded managed to escape, but Sam was able to disarm the bomb and salvage the materials. A few hours later, the Stranded had set off several roadside bombs and launched ambushes of their own. Sgt.Marcus Fenix, Bernie, and Baird were pursuing a group of Stranded on foot with the help of Mac, a hunting dog, and KR-239. Sam offered her assistance to them, and headed to her position on her Rat bike. The Raven gave her directions to the Stranded, but by the time she reached them, Delta had already engaged them. Sam ended the battle by ramming the last Stranded standing with her bike, knocking him to the ground and injuring him badly. She then jumped off the bike and pressed her chainsaw to the guys throat just in case he was able to move and tried to shoot the Gears. Marcus was annoyed with Sam, since they were supposed to take the Stranded alive, but she confirmed that she had not killed the target. She helped the rest of the squad load the three Stranded they had captured into the Raven, and headed back to New Jacinto. 'Patrolling the Sea' Three days later, Sam went with Baird, Muller, and Cpl.Dominic Santiago aboard the Amirale Enka, an Gorasni patrol boat, to guard the fishing trawlers from Pelruan. Sam was nervous about going on the boat, but Baird told her not to worry. Once they boarded, Baird introduced her as being there to clean and cook, which hurt Sam's feelings, but she tried not to let Baird see that. She threatened the Gorasni sailors to stop checking her out or else they would end up in the hospital, which quickly earned Sam their respect. She then took up position on a mounted gun on the foredeck, where she briefly talked with Dom as the ship got underway. She remained on the gun all morning, until one of the trawlers, the Levanto, exploded. No Stranded were detected on the radar, and Baird worried it may have been a mine. Sam had Dom take over on the gun since she was the ordnance expert, and got into a Marlin with Baird to check out the remains of the ship. She determined by the debris that it hadn't been a mine, which made her and Baird even more worried about what it was. After they returned to the Amirale Enka, Sam went back to manning the gun, and watched as Baird sorted through the wreckage they had recovered for a clue as to what had happened. She joined Dom in discussing with Captain Quentin Michaelson what had happened to the ship, and she doubted it was Locust as Dom hoped. Sam told him the Locust couldn't cross the ocean in their barges and that they would have seen or detected any Leviathans. Michaelson agreed with her assessment, but told her that he was not ruling anything out. 'Keeping the Peace' Marcus then contacted Sam and Dom, and asked for help in dealing with a crowd from Pelruan that was growing agitated over the Levanto's destruction. They found Chairman Richard Prescott and Col.Victor Hoffman and a line of other Gears trying to defuse the crowd and stop them from entering the Stranded community in New Jacinto that had been given amnesty. They were unsuccessful, and Sam began maneuvering to get a clear shot at any member of the crowd who turned violent. Luckily, Marcus managed to get them to disperse when he told them that Stranded had not sunk the ship, and made them understand that there was another unknown threat out there. The crowd dispersed, and Sam complimented Marcus on doing a good job dealing with them. However, there was already more trouble starting near the Stranded ghetto. Sam and the others found Pvt.Dizzy Wallin trying to keep the peace between some Stranded and Gorasni, while some of Jacinto's citizens watched. However, a brawl erupted, and the New Jacinto citizens attacked Dizzy. Marcus cannoned into the brawl to separate everyone, and Sam was punched in the face by a Stranded women while trying to help him by pushing the Stranded back. The fight ended when Sam, Marcus, and Dom had each pinned a separate fight from each group down. Dizzy yelled at the Jacinto citizens, appalled that they did not consider him one of them despite fighting for them. As the ashamed citizens walked away, Sam went up to Dizzy and asked him follow her to the bar so they could get drunk and forget about the civilians. 'Lambent Invasion' 'Back at Sea and Patroling the Stranded Shanty Town' The next day, Sam went back out with Dom on the smallest fishing trawler, M70, with the rest of Delta divided up on several other ships. During the trip, the ship that Marcus and Bernie were on, the Coral Star, hauled up a Lambent creature. They and the crew were forced to evacuate the boat, and the ship was destroyed when the Lambent exploded. After they returned to VNB, they found Reid waiting for them on the pier. He ordered Marcus and Bernie to be debriefed, and ordered Baird to take Sam, Cole, and Dom on patrol. As they walked through the Stranded's living area, Sam noted that it wasn't as bad as some of the places she had lived in, and asked Baird what was in the center of the island. He told her it was a dead volcano, with a lot of forest and caves on it. Soon after this, a truck of Gorasni soldiers arrived, and Sam readied her Lancer commented that if they started throwing candy to the crowd, she was going to swear off drinking. They were shocked when the Gorasni dumped off the bodies of Insurgents they had killed in a recent battle. Sam and Cole quickly blocked the Stranded crowd off from the Gorasni, as Baird tried to convince the Gorasni commander, Yanik Laas, to leave. A crowd of Jacinto citizens also appeared to watch what was happening, and Sam tried to get them to go back inside to prevent anything else from happening. The squad stayed there until the Stranded had taken the bodies away, in order to make sure no more violence erupted. 'Battle of the Emerald Spar Platform' A few days later, Lambent Stalks were spotted heading towards the Emerald Spar Imulsion Platform. Sam was one of twenty Gears sent on three King Ravens to backup the platform's defenders. After arriving, she swapped ammo with Cpl.Jace Stratton. Once the battle began, Sam went with Baird and Cole into the lower decks of the platform, and found a door where a bunch of Lambent Polyps were trying to break through. They planned to ambush them, but Sam was worried what would happen if they set off something explosive. Baird told her it didn't matter, that if they didn't shoot the Polyps, they would kill them and set something explosive off themselves. They opened the hatch and fired into the mass of Polyps. When they couldn't see anymore, Sam peeked around the corner and shot a couple more, and told the other two they were clear. They began clearing corridor after corridor of an endless number of Polyps. As they fought, the platform suffered more and more damage, with the Polyps explosions destroying bulkhead and bridges, and also setting off fires and igniting Imulsion. After assisting Aurelie Dersau in fighting a group of Polyps, Sam was contacted by Marcus and told to ask Baird how many Polyps the Stalks carried, but Baird was unable to figure it out. KR-239 managed to destroy the first Stalk, but another emerged and began pouring more Polyps onto the platform, and the Sam, Baird, and Cole continued to clear corridors. They eventually had to abandon the platform when it began to take too much damage, and Sam escaped with the rest of the Gears and many of the crew aboard an evacuation boat. 'Calm Before the Storm' The next day, Sam was patrolling Vectes on her Rat-bike, and offered to pick Bernie up after she killed three Stranded insurgents, but Bernie refused the ride. A few days later, Sam was taking a break and drinking with Dizzy in the mess hall when Dom arrived, and asked her if she could modify his tattoo of a heart with Maria's name in it. She was interested in the challenge and agreed to do it. Sam gathered her tattooing supplies and met Dom in a storeroom at the barracks in order to prevent anyone from stumbling upon them. Dom told her that he wasn't sure on what he wanted done, but just wanted something to mark that Maria was gone. Sam understood, and after staring at the tattoo for a moment, asked him if he trusted her. Dom said he did, so she began working on transforming the tattoo. When she finished, it had become an angel cradling Maria's name, and Dom was overcome with how perfect it was. As Sam began walking away, Dom told her he owed her, but she told him he didn't, and that doing that for him had made her day. 'Deployed to Pelruan' After a suspected Leviathan was spotted heading toward Vectes, Sam was sent to Pelruan with Bernie, both of whom were annoyed at being sent to the "soft option". She rode her Rat-bike to the town, following Bernie, who was in a Packhorse with her dog Mac. They stopped outside of the barracks and reported to Anya, who had been placed in charge of the garrison in the town. Sam walked with Bernie though the town, taking notice of all of the wooden houses. She remarked how that the city would burn if it came under attack, and told Bernie about how her mom had told her about how the wooden houses of Anvegad burned during the Siege of Anvil Gate. They walked past a Pendulum Wars memorial, where she and Bernie stopped to pay their respects. Sam noticed a card on a wreath lay near the memorial, and saw that it was from survivors of the Duke of Tollen's Regiment, many of whom lived in Pelruan and had fought the Gorasni. Sam remarked that the Pelruan citizens would never get along with the Gorasni, and Bernie agreed. As they continued walking, Sam asked Bernie if there was anyone specifically that she had lost to the war, and Bernie remarked that she was lucky, and that no one face kept her up at night. After dropping Mac off at William Berenz's, Sam and Bernie headed to the signals office. They found Sgt.Drew Rossi there, and he sent them to an observation post on the western cliffs of the town. While up there, Sam monitored the local comm network, and was disturbed by the view, noting that if she looked out at the sea a certain way, it made it seem like there was nothing else left on Sera. Sam kept an eye out with binoculars, and then spotted a large creature surface briefly. She handed the binoculars to Bernie, and pointed out where she had seen the movement. They both then saw it, and realized it was the Leviathan. Sam quickly contacted Anya and informed her about it. 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